Julian Mortimer Smith

The first reviews of my book are starting to come in! It feels both very exciting and very weird. And it means I get to practice the time-honoured art of selectively quoting the good bits.

Publishers Weekly: “…showcases Smith’s ability to create refined and immersive worlds.” “Fantasy lovers should seek this out.”

Foreword Reviews: “The uniquely visualized tales of The World of Dew and Other Stories place traditional human struggles with mortality, love, and belonging into a panoply of new worlds.”

My first book is being published!

The World of Dew and Other Stories is a collection of 18 short stories that run the gamut from old-fashioned fairytales to hard sci-fi. It’ll be avialable April 2021 from Indiana University Press.

I have entered a piece of interactive fiction in the 2020 Interactive Fiction Competition. In “Captain Graybeard’s Plunder,” you play a retired pirate captain who cobbles together a ship and crew from the pages of classic seafaring literature in order to get revenge on an old foe.

You can read/play all the entries in this year’s competition here (there are over 100!): https://ifcomp.org/ballot/

And here’s a direct link to my story: https://2309.play.ifcomp.org/content/Captain_Graybeard_s_Plunder.html

Donald Conrad of Bitterly Indifferent Studios has been creating charming illustrations for each of the games in the competition. Here’s his illustration of Captain Graybeard:

I’m happy to announce that “Headshot” has been translated into Spanish and published at Cuentos para Algernon.

Cuentos para Algernon is a wonderful science fiction blog dedicated to translating and publishing science fiction stories that would otherwise not be available in Spanish. The blog has just been nominated for a European Science Fiction Society Achievement Award.

Thanks so much to Marcheto for the translation!

The Yarmouth library has asked me to teach an online workshop on writing short stories — and it’s starting this Thursday! This free workshop will run every Thursday in May, from 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm. There’s still space, but registration closes this Monday.

Send an email to yarmouth@nsy.library.ns.ca to register.